Roost & Roast - Palo Alto, California

Roy D.

Nice place to get some healthy food. This place serves, mostly Asian style, rice bowls, salads, noodles or stir frys.
Tofu / cauliflower make for good vegetarian or vegan option.

The cauliflower seemed freshly roasted as well. It's a bit in the expensive side for the quantity and given it's a counter service restaurant.
But worth trying

Elsie K.

I catered an event for over 80 people with Roost And Roast. Everyone raved about the food! The owner, Branden, was extremely generous and kind and made a special delivery to our event, after closing hours. Each tray was generously filled, and we had an abundance of food. I will definitely order from them again. It was a pleasure working with Roost And Roast and I highly recommend them!

Steven W.

The food was actually really flavorful. This place only takes credit card and you have to use a kiosk to order, they do not take your order for you. You can tell most people order online in advance. It did take a little longer than I expected to get my food as there is no seating inside, only outside. So you have to just stand there until it's ready - it was about 10 minute wait and there were 3 people ahead of me. So it's not going to be a fast in and out like a Chipotle.
Overall the food was really good with average/medium sized portions. I would recommend this to others if you are in the mood for some Thai!

Rick D.

Something different. Chicken thai style. The papaya salad was great. The chicken was just ok. Both bbq and fried. The popcorn chicken was the better overall. I like the choices of dipping thai sauces. All in all, it was a little better than fast food.

Amit B.

Tried the papaya salad and the fried chicken drum and thigh. Both were ridiculously good. Highly recommended.
Update (Feb 2025) - adding the ground basil pork over rice dish to my list of favorites.

K D.

If you are in the neighborhood looking for to-go, and like chicken karaage, don't mind some grease, you might like this place. Or check out the rice dishes or Thai iced tea machine.

The quality of chicken is no worse than most places around here, and since Bonchon chain has gone down the drain, this may be the slightly better option (at R&R you don't get soy garlic or gochujang, you get toasted rice nori? Or sweet chili sauce on the side).

Several years ago, this place used to be a chicken place with a different name (Tony?we don't recall). Now it's got a spiffy looking sign and clean cut look.

We didn't want rice, so we ordered the chicken a la carte option with a mix of wing, thighs, drumsticks, which tasted like bone-in chicken karaage and also tried the popcorn chicken, which was exactly like the taiwanese fried chicken at those bubble tea places, right down to the two skewers.

The bone in fried chicken smelled like your typical fresh fried chicken, overall tasted fresh, but was very greasy, oily. They do give you fresh lime wedges that cut the grease a bit.

The fat, particularly in the chicken wings is 80% rendered, which given that NO place around here we have tried has yet to render properly (why?why?) we either fry ourselves and smell the lingering chickeny odor for days in our rental apartment while working from home, or just settle for mostly rendered, and spit out pieces of rendered fat. (Yes, truly we have sunk to a new low)

The popcorn chicken was less greasy, but like other taiwanese fried chicken places, pieces were rather rubbery, fatty, and mostly fried batter pieces (Some people love this). We got a mixed batch, some were pale, powdery, some were dark brown/black in color.

They package your chicken in vented eco-friendly containers. Not closing the lids keeps chicken crispy. The plastic bag accumulate lots of moisture, but guessing paper bags might leave grease spots in your car.

They are generous with the deep fried Thai basil, but maybe it's the season? There was no aroma or taste (normally you can smell the sharp herbal note of Thai basil).

Service is friendly, but store procedure could be improved. Once you place your order on one of the two kiosks, an estimated wait time/txt msg when order is ready would be nice.

As it was, we waited outside, (there isn't really a waiting area or seating inside) hovering at the entryway, making sure we didn't miss our name being called from inside the store, while not blocking potential customers from entering.

Good to know: if you order a rice dish, they do carry the worst quality splintery chopsticks that a lot of silicon valley restaurants use (i am on a mission to eliminate these splintery cheapo chopsticks from restaurants everywhere! Saving one tender mouth at a time!)

Char P.

I absolutely LOVE this place! It is one of my favorite places to eat in Palo Alto! I love the 3-piece Hat Yai Chicken and Rice with the sweet chili sauce. The chicken is always crunchy and the pickled carrots and daikon, crispy onions and cucumbers are just the perfect combination! The portion is perfectly filling without overwhelming!

The staff are always polite even during really busy hours. They can get quite busy after 5, so sometimes the wait can feel a bit long, especially if you're really hungry! The front end always looks clean and orderly. There are a lot of people that come through whether they order for pick-up or at the counter.

The location is convenient, especially to Stanford. It is also right next to Palmetto Superfoods, which is an acai bowl shop, which is my favorite placed to grab an acai bowl! Even though the plaza is always busy, we always manage to find a parking spot.

Definitely recommend you stop by and grab something to eat!

julian M.

It appears my review from another google account has been deleted. So I will repost it on this one since I feel obligated to tell people that I FOUND A PUBIC HAIR AT THE BOTTOM OF MY TAKE OUT CONTAINER.

Otherwise the food is pretty good not gonna lie.